AoM Gatehouse Phase 1 : Appraising Defenses

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As they toured the island, Makny and his father would stop in many towns and villages, making sure that local affairs were in order and speaking on behalf of the Lord ofFørstlys when needed. One of the stops on their journey was to Sorgheim, an ancient village that stood at the base of the mountains where could be found many of the tombs, crypts, and barrows that gave the Burial Isle its name. In recent years Nocturnian raiders had begun to frequent the shores of the island, occasionally making their way deep inland. Thus, the people of Sorgheim, like so many others, had bolstered the defenses around their town. The gatehouse at the center of their palisade made use of an ancient, crumbling arch, which they had cleaned and rebuilt to an extent, and which the Jarl's men now patrolled.

I've been sitting on this for a while because I wanted to post it as part of a larger assembly, but with the guilds being so quiet lately I figured I might as well post it now. I'll probably clean it up a bit more before I post the whole scene, but for now C&C are welcome!

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This is great! I love the slanted walls on the sides, those are great an the stonework is good aswell. The weaker part of the build is the road, I think it is too monotonous. Add some greys and even a bit of brown into it and it will look much better in my opinion. It would also benefit a lot if you made it less straight.

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Very nice! There's a number of aspects to it I really like: in particular, the straight lines and corners are straight, but not 'clean' (as in the old 1980s sets), as you've added texture to the stonework. While some people like a more dilapidated look to many stone structures, I like to see straighter lines to structures that are in use and maintained. Real castles many times laid down layers of slate every so many feet to keep the structure flat and straight. I also love the use of the vertical brown tiles; to me, it simulates the appearance of a wooden palisade, which is not easy to do at times given the space constraints of Lego. The overall design with the ladders out back is great, too.

I love the color choice for the dirt in the back (dark tan), and I think the technique that you used to make a slight gradient in elevation would be awesome for a large display. My only suggestion would be in this particular case to perhaps put a few 1x1 round plates or a few flower stalks around the edge of the wall to give a little more texture/detail to the area with all the dark tan, as I think on this scale, the subtle elevation texturing you did is a little lost.

Overall, very nice build, and thank you for sharing with us during this slowdown of builds!

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An excellent start to your gatehouse builds! Having the corners of the towers stick out a stud farther than the rest of the stone gives some nice depth change to the wall, and you did a great job with the slanted palisade sections. They fit almost perfectly against the 1x2x3 slopes. The wooden 2x2 round beams that make up the gateway are a nice change from the usual arched gateway, though they're hidden pretty well under there - I didn't see them the first time I looked! Great little details with the torches set along the inside wall too

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Lovely start to your gatehouse builds! That sloped wall design is fabulous, and is something I could see being useful in a lot of different settings

Nice work making the stone portions of the wall look believably ancient, while it's obvious that the wood additions are much more recent. Like John, I think the use of SNOT 2x2 round bricks over the gateway is very neat, gives a good impression of a large timber beam. As others have already mentioned, the dark tan dirt does look a bit plain in sections.

The torches and ladders on the back platforms are nice little finishing touches

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I love this build, as it has such a clean look to it. The colors are plain (which is good, as it avoids being distractingly busy) and the shapes are clearly blocked out. My one complaint is that there is a random headlight brick on the front of the stone section that looks like it is missing its 1x1 dark bley tile. I look forward to seeing this hooked up the wall segment that you have also posted!